Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 25 JUNE 25, 2013 was closing fast. For the '51 Jack Pine Gee had a fresh bike - almost too fresh. He bought a 1951 Triumph Trophy and needed to break it in. "I bought the Triumph in August and refereeing races every Sunday and working as a die maker full time didn't allow me much time to ride the bike," Gee explained. "My wife rode the bike around town to break it in for me. People were looking at me before the start of the Jack Pine. The bike was so shiny and new when I started the race." When Gee arrived at race headquarters he found that riding number 278 had been drawn for him. "They started the race with four men at a time on each minute, with rider 1 starting with 101, 201 and 301. That meant that around 300 riders would be on the course in front of me. Needless to say I wasn't overjoyed with that starting number." With the Silver Anniversary, the layout team was instructed to make the course a tough one. "Not far out of Lansing I came upon the first bad spot," Gee remembered. "It was a large swampy field with countless motorcycles strewn in every conceivable position. There had been a lot of rain prior to the event and the mud and creeks took their toll on man and machines. I crashed and flailed my way through to the noon check. I ate a sandwich and was off again. The bumps were so bad you had to roll through them in first gear with the throttle almost shut, and then came the mud and creeks." When Gee pulled into the town of Sterling he could tell there were problems. "About a hundred riders came back into town and reported that the course could not be found. We waited for almost an hour and when no officials showed up we all rode into the night control at West Branch." Trail markers had been meddled with so officials decided to end the first day's scoring at Sterling. "Monday dawned bright and clear and I went bouncing and crashing through the underbrush, creeks and deep sand," Gee said. "At a big P115 swamp near Harrison I got into real trouble. There were buried logs laying at all angles under the deep goo. Most of the remaining riders had teamed up in groups of three and four to help each other through the almost impassable stretch. I was riding fast and alone and had to get through the swamp by myself." Somehow Gee said he managed to make it through and at lunch on day two he had another sandwich, tightened up the chain, gassed up his Triumph and was back on the trails and deer paths back to Lansing. "I checked in 20 minutes early in front of the State Capitol having finished the roughest Jack Pine ever with nothing more than a chain adjustment," Gee said proudly. That night at the lodge riders and fans gather to anxiously hear the radio reports coming in from the checks. Gee was told, unofficially, that he had a safe lead and he went to bed not knowing for sure if he'd won or not. The next morning it was verified - Gee had won the 25th Anniversary of the Jack Pine Run. He was presented the National Championship trophy (back then the winner of the Jack Pine also earned the AMA National Enduro Championship) and the iconic Jack Pine Cow Bell all the while getting photos taken and giving interviews to the press. Triumph featured Gee in two-page win ads afterwards. It was Gee's proudest moment in racing. He'd finally accomplished what he'd first set out to do back in 1934, he'd won the Jack Pine, America's most important and grueling off-road race. Gee continued racing the Jack Pine through 1970 when he was well into his 50s. He was forced to retire from enduro racing after the 1970 season when he suffered a ruptured kidney while racing. Gee, who died in 2004, was inducted in the Hall of Fame in 1998. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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